As Nina’s speed of descent continued to increase in the darkness, the familiar sound of rushing air entered her ears. The voices that she had heard drifting up the chute from below were soon drowned out, and the rippling on her jacket became frantic. Again, the air was damp and uncomfortable, but at least she was calm enough this time around to process her thoughts in a cohesive manner.

Svanda had called it the rush, the initial part of a descent to a lower plate where the fall felt real. Don’t look down was the only advice she had offered as they weren’t equipped with goggles, but the temptation was difficult to resist. Nina wondered how Jade and Aline’s dresses managed to make it out unscathed, but then remembered how Jade had dived in head first. Head first with your eyes closed was something that Nina wasn’t brave enough to do, but then again she would probably develop a sense of faith in not being turned into a pancake after a few more attempts.

Almost as quickly as the rush had sent her hair flailing wildly above her and pressed her cheeks upward, the roar in her ears began to subside. Gradually, she managed to straighten her clothing and breathe a relative sigh of relief as she heard Jade’s laughter echo up the chute as though confirming that the worst was over. As she had jumped last, she opted not to spread herself out and instead remained vertical to catch up with the rest of the group, her eyes now glancing downward to spot a familiar pinhead of light below.

As for exactly why the rush was replaced by the comfortable feeling after a certain amount of time, she hadn’t found the answer. She had asked Svanda, but her response had been that she didn’t really understand it herself. It didn’t matter, apparently, as long as it worked. Nina wasn’t particularly satisfied with the answer as she wondered if it could change, so she had asked Trim instead who pointed her in the direction of a book which proved to be just as confusing as it was thick. Aline couldn’t clarify the contents for her when she asked, and Jade didn’t even care how it worked. After passing on asking Saela, she had finally ended up stepping into Reina’s office only to be told that she couldn’t explain it very well either. ‘I might wear a labcoat, but I’m not a scientist’, she had said while eyeing the book with a sense of unease before adding that Euris could help. Having a conversation with Euris, however, would probably be more difficult than deciphering the book herself.

The circle of light below began to swell in size as she observed shapes slowly drifting across it, members of the team as they neared the exit to the badlands. She could hear voices as an animated conversation reached her, although she couldn’t make out the words. A cheer came as a familiar rhythm began to play, the switching on of Trim’s stereo signifying that it was time for yet another circus in the sky.

Nina hadn’t spent much time looking at pictures of the Luesa Badlands in the book that she had, mainly because there hadn’t been many to look at in the first place. They had seemed almost alien, like drawings from a fantasy novel that she would read while the rain hammered against her window on Caecus. A land of red earth and white sand that destroyed everything but the hardiest of survivors, the Luesa Badlands were just as unforgiving as the SuTSU employees that dropped people there.

As though filling in the blanks in her mind, Nina shot through the disc of light at the bottom of the chute to see the land from the pictures below her. A canvas of reds, oranges, and whites was stretched out across her vision as her eyes locked onto the group below her. Both Svanda and Trim were relaxing with their backs to the scenery, Svanda already with closed eyes while Trim had her head on the stereo. Jade and Aline, both descending head first, lazily rolled against the gentle breeze that masked how quickly they were descending. In the centre of the group stood Reina, arms crossed and with her feet shoulder-width apart as she surveyed the scene below.

Nina was unfortunately in the same boat as Saela, drifting higher above the group as they were less familiar with maneuvering themselves through the air. In a repeat of what Nina guessed she had tried last time, Saela flattened her arms by her sides to form a pin now that she could now use her vision to orient herself, her speed increasing as she dropped towards the group. Remembering how she had wildly overshot the last time, Nina decided to instead move headfirst while spreading her arms out to ensure that she didn’t pick up too much speed. She surprised herself with her decision to drop head first, but the ability to survey her surroundings was invaluable.

“Not bad,” Reina mused as she watched Nina drift down before flattening herself out a little to curb the extra speed.

“Is the air always this dry?” Nina asked as she righted herself before staring at the ground below them, now close enough to make out features. Long snaking canyons of sea-green water lined with sparse vegetation cut through the dusty red plateaus that were topped with white sand, a desert stretching away in the distance. Along the river below them she made out a collection of regularly shaped objects, reaching the conclusion that it was a town. Despite how far she could see, the rest of the plate below her was stretches of the same reds and whites, as though someone had copy-pasted one design over and over.

Inhospitable.

“It’s a bit different from the chute, isn’t it?” Reina smiled at her question. “That’s the badlands for you, and you’ll start to feel the heat too once we get closer to the surface.” Once she saw that Nina was left in thought, she turned her shoulder slightly and drifted off in the direction of Saela who was now rising to meet them. She had overshot again and was now stretching out like a starfish to try and return to the group's altitude.

“Ready to meet some of the baddest people on seven plates?” Jade joked as she glided over, Aline following her with a practiced motion before stopping beside her.

“Should I be worried?” Nina asked in reply. She had thought about it before, the fact that they were dropping into what was essentially a lawless prison. The dismissive mood of the group, however, had left her feeling as though it wasn’t a big issue. They had obviously been through this plate quite a few times already, so she reasoned that their confidence was at least well-founded.

“Nobody is going to cause any trouble with us,” Aline smiled. “Weapons are rare in the badlands because SuTSU confiscates what it can find. Even if people are armed, nobody is going to start anything because it’s not worth having a pile of wardens swarm out of an anthill.”

“An anthill?”

“The SuTSU wardens here hide in their own fortresses unless someone goes and starts a ruckus,” Jade explained. “They’re super nice inside apparently, probably because nobody would agree to work down here if they weren’t.”

“They’re not suits?”

“Suits are too good for this place,” Aline laughed. “If you’re talented enough to become a suit, you’ll be living a much better life than these guys.”

Suit rejects then, Nina thought. It reminded her of how someone who was angry with the world could seek power in a police force or prison on Caecus. Would a failed and angry SuTSU employee take their problems out on the unfortunate prisoners in the badlands? The repercussions here would probably be non-existent too.

“Let’s form up, we don’t have far to move,” Reina cut their conversation short as her voice rang out over Trim’s stereo. “Nina, curl your toes upward in your boots to boost, and stay close to someone.”

“Right.”

“Is everyone above seventy?”

Nina looked around as there was a murmur of confirmation and nodding. It was the same question that Reina had asked the group the very first time they had met, but she hadn’t thought to ask about it.

“Nina, you should be at one hundred unless you’ve burnt it all without realizing,” Reina smiled. “Boost a little and watch your boots.”

Nina stared at her boots before raising her toes inside. At the same time as she felt a light nudge from the booster kicking in, a red ‘100’ appeared on each shoe above her toes before changing to ’99.’

“That’s the stored energy,” Reina said as she observed the rest of the group moving in towards her. “It recharges the fastest when it’s over fifty, so always try and land with each boot above.”

“In case we need to drop a few times in a row,” Svanda explained. “Don’t want to be out of energy when you’re above the wrong tower or the Skywall, after all.”

“Or in the middle of nowhere on Zaffre’s,” Jade added.

“Yeah, that would suck actually,” Trim laughed as the group entered a loose formation while all descending parallel to the surface. Nina watched as an array of red lights appeared on their boots, an indicator that they were using their shoes, and followed suit. It was gentle, but it felt similar to when Svanda had grabbed her hand the first time, a sort of dragging sensation against the breeze as though it were water. The readings were something that she had missed when they had met, but it was probably because she’d had bigger issues to worry about than looking at people’s shoes. She tried to read the numbers on Svanda’s shoes, but even though she was the closest, she couldn’t make it out.

“We’re heading straight for the settlement?” she asked as she saw that they were moving in the direction of the town she had seen earlier. Sitting in between the wall of the canyon and the river that had carved it, the town looked like something she would have expected to see in a western movie. Wooden houses sat in varying states of disrepair along the canyon wall while larger buildings sat between them and the main road that ran along the riverbank.

“This isn’t the Skywall or Luem, nobody here can do anything to us,” Trim smiled. Nina realised that while they were now directly above the town, Trim hadn’t turned her stereo off and seemed to have no plan to do so. No longer using their shoes, the group dropped like pins before the sudden deceleration of the field kicked in, sending Nina’s stomach rocketing upwards.

Like moths to a flame, curious onlookers began to appear from doorways and windows all over the town as Trim’s stereo rang out above them. Coming to a stop around ten meters above the main street, the field then slowly dropped the group the rest of the way before setting their feet on solid ground.

“Yep, these entrances are the best,” Jade chuckled as she stretched her arms over her head. “Where’s the carrier guy?”

“I’m here, it's hard not to hear that stereo” a man with a dirty mop of brown hair replied as he stepped out from behind one of the larger buildings. Like many of the residents that Nina could see, he wore loose brown pants and a ragged shirt. His sunken eyes scanned the group quickly before he scratched at a straggly beard. “I’ll be ready to go in ten.”

“We’ll be right here,” Reina smiled.